[amsat-bb] Who Let THIS Info Out?

[Bruce Perens]

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 4:29 PM Joseph Armbruster <josepharmbruster at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I have seen the absolute worst that humanity has to offer.
>

Gosh, that is a horrible story and I am so sorry to hear that this happened
to you. I also watched my father die, much too young, in front of me. But
not from violence. Still, you never really recover.

My personal story of injustice is about being put, without examination, in
the "retarded" children's class on my first day in school. I had speech and
motor deficits and a 140 IQ at the time. They didn't tell my parents. They
did not teach reading. I had no idea, as a  first grader, what to expect
and my parents did not find out until they realized that my description of
my classmates was unusual. I got out eventually, but the injustice and
damage continued.

Having been completely failed by the formal educational system, Amateur
Radio was an important part in my self-education. It was through
self-education that I got to work for Pixar and later was a computer
science and public policy researcher and lecturer at three colleges,
despite my lack of a degree and without ever having taken the first formal
class in those things.

> Many people in AMSAT have really changed my life and I know that I am not
the only one that feels this way.
> As a result, I take all of this very personally.  Maybe this is just my
own experience and maybe i'm the only one... but..
> None of these people hired lawyers against me, ever.

People have very definitely hired lawyers for the purpose of suppressing my
speech. The fact that I won the case and recovered my defense costs, which
were well over my usual year's income, should be sufficient proof that
justice was not on their side. So, I hope you can understand that I take
that sort of legal attack every bit as personally.

Michelle and Patrick will not have to win any case, but the board's
handling of opposition was IMO very ill-conceived. You are attempting to
support that with an argument that nobody would accept in a court room, and
that is fundamentally ad-hominem. You can expect others to take offense
when you use it, and to show it in the light of the worse elements of
society that have historically used it. I suggest that you not make a third
repetition of this argument if you don't want to hear the rebuttal again.

    Thanks

    Bruce